✊🏽 Vote.

Thirty years ago I came to this country as a refugee. We had nothing. Not even enough money to buy a microwave or a jacket.
My family and I were refugees. We fled our home in Kuwait when Saddam Hussein invaded the country in 1990. In the process, we left everything behind. I remember the day my dad spent his last five dollars to buy me a rotisserie chicken on our way to a refugee camp in Jordan.
He didn't eat anything for days afterwards.
When we got to LA, much to the embarrassment of my mother, I wrote a letter to the mayor of our small city. In that letter, I laid out the story of our escape from Kuwait, the months we spent in various refugee camps, and our eventual arrival to LA.
I shared the shame of poverty. Pulling out food stamps at the grocery store. Bright red shorts because that's all I could afford. The laughter of children because it had to be borne. I talked about how my highly educated parents couldn't find any work except at fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. Bu…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to UnfairNation by Ehsan Zaffar to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.